A Year in the Lives
by palmaviolet
Summary: A year in the lives of Marlene Mcfly, Verne and Jules Brown - but not necessarily in the right order.
1. New Year's Eve, 2014

_Authors Note: I do not profess to owning any of the characters in the Back to the Future Franchise  
__My thinking in writing this was that after the Almanac was destroyed and Marty never got into the accident, the future would be vastly changed, therefore my depictions of Marlene, Marty Jr, Jules and Verne are slightly different to their movie counterparts who I don't believe would exist if Marty hadn't got into the accident. Also whilst Jules and Verne were shown as 6-10 year olds in the early nineties when the animated series was set (before Marlene and Marty Jr were even born), a head cannon of mine is that Doc and Clara wanted them to go to high school with the Mcfly kids, thus Marty Jr is the youngest at 15, Verne is a sophomore and 16, Marlene is a junior and 17 and Jules is 18 and a senior._

New Year's Eve, 2014, Mcfly House, Hill Valley. Marlene's walls were a mad collage of fashion cut-outs, inside jokes and photograph memories. Sitting in her room was like being surrounded by a scrapbook. Verne and Marl lay on the floor, side by side, joining up the dots in the glow-in-the-dark constellations on her ceiling. They were almost completely silent, every once in a while speaking their thoughts aloud. The iPod had long since stopped singing and the sun was beginning to set.

Marl liked being friends with a boy with none of the typical sexual tension. Verne liked being friends with a girl who didn't expect anything more. They trusted each other implicitly. Verne knew how she preferred hot chocolate to coffee, he knew every intricate detail of any minor character in the novel she had been working on, his thumb had traced the skinny scars on her wrists and thighs. Marlene knew to protect him from all spiders in a 5 mile radius, she had helped him to revise for his Spanish exams last semester, she had held him tight as he had sobbed to stop him from coming apart at the seams. Their friendship functioned on the mutual understanding that they were imperfect individuals living in an imperfect world; they were two people searching for their own peace of mind and didn't hold the other responsible with creating joy for them. On some occasions they sunk into the bitter cynicism that surrounded them but on days like today they preferred to float in a realm of more whimsical pursuits. It was a friendship that didn't need to be fuelled by endless chatter; sometimes they simply needed the other's company and the time to appreciate an artificial night sky.

"You finished with Catcher in the Rye yet?"

"I leant it to Jules."

"Oh. Tell him to look out for the red cap motif."

"Will do."

And then they eased back into their respective trains of thought, all the while breathing in a perfect synchronisation.


	2. July, 2015

July, 2015, The Café 80's, Hill Valley. All the tedium of waitressing and irritation of dealing with obnoxious customers, with the added embarrassment of cleaning up tables dressed as Madonna in her Material Girl Era.

"Welcome to the Café 80's, where it's always morning in America – even in the afternoon. May I take your order?" she said in that monotonous voice she reserved especially for asshole customers.

A smile slowly spread across Griff's face, "Do you have any specials today?"

"Tannen, you were in here yesterday-"

"Don't take that tone with me Mcfly, I thought the customer was always right?"

Marlene let out an audible sigh, and glanced over to her supervisor who pantomimed a cheesy grin, reminding her of the Café 80's Customer Relations Code – _Grin and Bear It_. She sighed and began to recite her sales pitch, verbatim, "At the Café 80's currently featuring a range of hot, hot specials for the whole summer – are you ready for the heatwave?" She tapped her pad with the stylus impatiently.

"Guess that puts you on the menu, Mcfly."

"You're nauseating. If you're not ordering anything, I have other customers to deal with."

"I was just thinking about who I'm asking to prom."

"The answer to a question I never asked."

"And I thought it'd be only fair to give you a shot with the best looking guy in school."

"I'd love to, but your boyfriend looks like the jealous type." Marlene shot a meaningful look at Data and smiled at them both sympathetically. Tannen grabbed her wrist before she could turn to leave.

"When are you gonna get it through your thick skull Mcfly, you're my girl."

Marlene pulled herself free. "Get out, and don't give me that look – I know you don't have the balls to start anything in here without your little gang to back you up, so get out before I call the police."

They glared at each other for a moment, before Tannen began to get up with deliberate slowness like a petulant child. Standing, he cut a more intimidating figure at over 6" tall in comparison to Marlene's 5"5. He put his hand under her chin and hissed in her ear, "Just admit it, Mcfly, we're meant to be." Marlene pulled away violently, knocking over another waitress (dressed as Boy George) and stormed off into the kitchen.

"That's my girl!" Tannen shouted after her.


	3. March, 2015

March, 2015, The Brown House, Hill Valley. Jules was in a permanent state of existential crisis. He worried almost constantly, about the world he inhabited, the life he wanted to inhabit. His mother described him as a 48 year old in the body of an 18 year old. And in all honesty he usually did prefer the company of adults to his peers. Of course at present the idea of spending time with fulfilled, self-actualised adults made him feel nauseous because in them he saw his failings (the idea of spending time with unfulfilled adults with no direction in life was even more repellent as in them he saw his reflection).

Then again being forced to interact with people of his own age group was unimaginable. His personal understanding (from observing his brother and Marlene) was that most young people could engage in meaningful conversation when solitary or in a group of two however he noticed a direct correlation between a drop in IQ points when couples with an increasing friendship group. When at home he would happily communicate with his brother (and Marlene if she was in attendance) about a whole variety of topics; but he would never have dreamed of starting a debate about Shakespeare's relevance to modern society at school when they were with their other friends.

Another thing that Jules had noticed was that maintaining these friendships seemed extremely tiring, they spend the whole day babbling together at school about God knows what only to continue the flow of dialogue at home via text or skype. And on top of that, these friends expected you to make appearances at social occasions and functions where not only would have to speak with your friends but also with strangers, acquaintances and various other offenders and by the end of the evening you would have made even more friends and the whole vile process would repeat itself. Then there came a knock at the door, really at the most inopportune moment Jules really was in no fit mood to speak to anyone.

"Come in?"

Marlene Mcfly, vaguely dishevelled, standing in his bed room door way, fiddling absent-mindedly with a strand of hair.

"Hey Jules," he smiled at the Beatles reference, "Your brother around?"

"It's 1 o'clock on a Sunday, I assume he's still in bed."

She smirked and nodded. "You grown a few inches since I saw you last, Brown?"

"You've probably just shrunk, Mcfly," he teased.

"Don't get clever with me, Brown," she jibed, "How's Advanced Calculus treating you?"

"Well someone's got to do it…"

"Pfft, don't act like you're too cool for numbers in front of me, punk."

"I don't think I've ever been accused of being too cool in my life."

She grinned. "I'd better go and wake sleeping beauty, laters Brown."

"'Bye Mcfly."

Jules amended his previous thought. He was _always_ in a fit mood to converse with Marlene Mcfly.


	4. Christmas Eve, 1885

Christmas Eve, 1885, London, England. A gentle snow was drifting down. The three travellers stood in awe with interlinked arms. Time travel always seemed so closely intertwined with danger and panic, this was almost too serene to be believed. Verne had dubbed it as time tourism. They had spent the day wandering down cobbled streets, feeding the birds, singing Mary Poppins songs (wrong era but they were worried visiting too near any world wars could get them arrested as foreign spies) and had bought various Christmas geese for various Tiny Tims.

Unlike the average American tourist, they tried as best they could to blend in with the locals which meant 3 pieces suits and bowler hats for the boys (which they had loved) and a tightly corseted dress for Marlene (which she had loathed). It was fun creating a new identity for a day, playing make believe. Marl, who had done most of the talking as she was very keen to show of her British accent, had introduced them to everyone they met as Eliza Doolittle, Sherlock Holmes and Peter Pan.

Their skin was getting wet and pink as they walked through the falling snow back to the train, back home - where the weather was sunny and bright, for they had left Hill Valley in the middle of June


End file.
